Fran's Pen Pal
by Kristen3
Summary: An alternate ending to episode 3.1, “Pen Pals.” What if Fran hadn’t been stood up at the Russian Tea room? Please RR, no flames!
1. Meeting Lenny

**Fran's Pen Pal**

_Author's Note:_ I borrowed a couple lines from the actual episode. No copyright infringement intended! Many thanks to Allison and Katie for their help w/ this fic, and for helping me through a _major_ case of writer's block!

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"I was just thinking how nice it is to get out, you know, without the kids," Fran Fine said. "Maybe it's time we thought about hiring someone to take care of – Oh!" 

Maxwell smiled. "Yes, Miss Fine, I've often thought of hiring a nanny myself." Fran laughed her trademark nasal laugh.

Just then, a young man approached wearing a red rose in the lapel of his jacket. "You _must_ be Fran Fine."

Fran was startled. "Huh? Who are you?"

"I'm Lenny," he said, pointing to the rose. "Lenny Goldstein, your pen pal."

"Oh, right," Fran said, embarrassed. "How could I have forgotten?"

The two hugged. "It's so great to finally meet you!" Lenny said. "You're even prettier than I imagined you'd be."

Again, Fran blushed. "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself." She looked Lenny over, and was very pleased with what she saw.

The smile on the nanny's face did not go unnoticed, especially not by Maxwell. "Miss Fine –"

"If you'd like to go, Mr. Sheffield, Lenny and I would _certainly_ understand," Fran said, nodding towards the door.

"No, that's quite all right. I don't mind staying, just in case you two need any help breaking the ice," Max replied.

"Fran, what's going on?" Lenny asked, clearly confused.

"Sorry. Lenny, this is my boss, Maxwell Sheffield. Mr. Sheffield, this is Lenny Goldstein, my first-grade pen pal," Fran said.

"You're awfully tall for being only six years old," Max joked as the two men shook hands.

"Yeah, I hit my growth spurt early," Lenny replied.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted, why don't we find ourselves a table?" Max suggested.

Fran looked daggers at him. "Mr. Sheffield, shouldn't you be getting home? Niles and Miss Babcock are home alone together. Who knows what those two could be up to by now?"

"Those two? What could they possibly be up to?" Max asked.

"Knowing those two, you're likely to come home to find dead body!" Fran joked.

"Miss Fine, please! Niles would never kill anyone, not even Miss Babcock. Besides, even if he did, he'd clean up after himself," Maxwell replied.

"But still, do you _really_ want a murderer around your children? And what if the press found out?" Fran asked.

"Oh, all right. I'll go," Max said reluctantly.

"Good," said Fran. "Then you take the limo, go home and check on Niles. I'll see you back at the house."

"Wait, you two live together?" Lenny asked. "I'm sorry, Fran, if I'd known you were involved, I never would've suggested we meet."

Fran laughed. "Oh, no, we're not 'living together,' living together. I'm just the nanny. I'm _definitely_ available."

"I'm very glad to hear that," Lenny said as he kissed Fran's hand. The nanny blushed a bright pink.

Max rolled his eyes. _Oh, please, could he _be _any cockier? This is bloody nauseating._

When her face returned to its normal color, Fran said, "Mr. Sheffield, I really think you should go check on Niles and Miss Babcock. Leaving those two together is worse than leaving Brighton alone with Gracie!"

"You're right," Maxwell said, chuckling at the thought of Brighton's constant attempts to terrorize his younger sister. "Well, it was nice meeting you," he said to Lenny. The two men shook hands, and Max turned to leave.

A moment later, Maxwell came back. "Miss Fine, are you _sure_ you don't want me to stick around, just in case you can't get a cab later? You know how dangerous it is for a woman to be alone in this city at night."

"This is not the middle of Central Park," Fran replied, now slightly annoyed. "Besides, I'm not alone." She gestured toward Lenny. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think that you were stalling because you don't want to leave Lenny and me alone. I might even think that you were jealous."

Max scoffed. "Me, jealous? Miss Fine, that's ridiculous!"

"Yeah, sure," Fran replied, clearly not buying it for a minute. "Look, if you don't leave Lenny and me alone, I'll invite my mother's canasta team over to lunch _all_ week."

"Miss Fine, I have a backers' meeting on Thursday! I can't have 12 elderly Jewish women kibitzing in my kitchen. You could feed a third-world country on the amount that they eat!"

"I know. So are you going to scram, or what?" Fran replied, not missing a beat.

Max sighed. "All right. You win. I'll leave. I can't believe I've been blackmailed by my own nanny!"

Reluctantly, Maxwell left the Russian Tea Room. As he walked toward the limo, he thought about what he would find at home. He knew Niles would be anxious to hear how the evening had gone. Max didn't think he could bear that right now. So he walked right past his limousine, apparently lost in thought. He spent the next several hours wandering around New York City, imaging the various romantic scenarios which might be happening at the Russian Tea Room between his nanny and her pen pal.

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Fran and Lenny found themselves a table and sat down to talk. "Who's this Miss Babcock you and Mr. Sheffield were talking about? His maid or something?" Lenny asked.

Fran nearly choked on her drink. "His _maid_! Please, her blood is bluer than Princess Di's!"

"Who is she, then?" Lenny asked. "I figured Niles was his butler, so I assumed Miss Babcock was the maid."

"Well, you're right about Niles. He and Mr. Sheffield have known each other since they were kids. But Miss Babcock is Mr. Sheffield's business partner. If she had her way, she'd be his _life_ partner, but that ain't happening anytime soon!" Fran said with her usual nasal laugh.

"So you're a nanny, huh?" Lenny asked. "I never thought that the woman I was writing to all these years was a nanny!"

Fran blushed a little. "I might have exaggerated a teensy bit in my letters."

"Oh, you mean you never went on tour with Barbra Striesand?" Lenny joked.

"Only in my dreams," Fran sighed.

"Darn," Lenny said in mock disappointment. "I just can't believe you're a nanny. You're pretty enough to be a model, yet here you are taking care of somebody else's kids. How did that ever happen?"

"Well, you see, I was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens, till my boyfriend kicked me out in one of those _crushing_ scenes."

"Hey, you're a poet, and you don't know it," Lenny said with a laugh.

Fran smiled. Even though she had only met him a few minutes ago, she liked him already. But she wasn't feeling quite the same excitement she usually felt with a new guy. There were no goosebumps on her arm, no shy blushing, nothing. In fact, it was almost as if she were talking to her friend Val. Fran had had male friends before, so that wasn't what surprised her most. Lenny was different from any of Fran's male friends. On paper, he was perfect for her. He was funny, smart, charming, cute, and, to top it all off, Jewish! If Fran's mother were here, she'd be calling him "son" already and asking when they were going to tie the knot already. No matter how hard she tried, Fran couldn't see Lenny that way. What could he possibly be missing?


	2. Torturing Maxwell

When Fran returned to the mansion later that night, Maxwell was sitting in the living room. "Mr. Sheffield, what are you doing up?"

"Oh...nothing. Couldn't sleep."

_Right_, thought Fran. _You couldn't sleep because you were jealous_. Knowing her employer had a history of being bothered by Fran's boyfriends, she decided not to miss an opportunity to have some fun with him. "Oh, I see," she said, trying to appear casual.

"So...how was your evening?" Maxwell asked, also trying to act nonchalant.

"It was completely different than any other date I've ever been on," Fran said with a knowing wink. The description of the evening was completely accurate, but she knew Max would interpret the remark completely the opposite of what she actually meant.

"Is that a good thing?" Maxwell asked, as he suddenly noticed his palms had begun to sweat. He hoped Miss Fine wouldn't notice his nervousness.

"Oh, yes," Fran said, wanting to make him sweat even more. "Lenny is terrific."

"Well, then...I'm very happy for you," Max stammered, swallowing nervously. "I guess I should get to bed, you know, early day tomorrow and all."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Fran said. "I'm beat."

The two went to their respective bedrooms, but neither one slept much. Max was still consumed with jealousy over Fran's new love interest and all the things he'd imagined as he wandered around before coming home. Meanwhile, Fran lay awake wondering why things had gone the way they had with Lenny. In his letters, he had seemed like such a wonderful guy, and he was. But there weren't any sparks between them.


	3. Val's Advice

Fran decided to get an objective opinion on the Lenny situation, so she invited Val over the next afternoon to talk. Val certainly was not the sharpest tool in the drawer, but she and Fran had been friends since before they could walk. Fran knew if nothing else, she could vent her problems to her friend.

Val looked around the Sheffield kitchen and asked, "Where's Niles?" The butler was usually as permanent a fixture in the room as the dishwasher, but today he was absent.

"Oh," Fran replied. "Mr. Sheffield told him to go pick up a chicken for tonight's dinner, and Niles took off muttering something about inviting Miss Babcock over. Guess the fumes from all that Lysol have finally seeped into his brain or something." The nanny rolled her eyes.

Val contemplated this for a moment, and couldn't think of an appropriate response. She decided to change the subject. "So how'd things go with Lenny last night?"

After double-checking that her employer was nowhere in sight, Fran answered, "To tell you the truth, Val, I was kind of disappointed."

"Why? He wasn't as great as you were expecting him to be?"

"No, he turned out to be wonderful. A real _mensch_," Fran said with a sigh.

"Am I missing something here?" replied the blonde with her usual confused expression.

Fran sighed again, this time in frustration at her friend's apparent cluelessness. "There wasn't anything between us."

"You mean there was no centerpiece on your table?" Val asked, once again being her usual literal-minded self.

"No, Val! I mean, when I was talking to Lenny, I might as well have been with _you_!"

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I don't mean it like that," Fran said apologetically. "I mean there was no attraction. And I don't get it. If Ma had seen him, she would've burst into 'Sunrise, Sunset' immediately!"

"Ohhhh," said Val, as the light in her head _finally_ turned on. "OK, well, let's think about this now. You said Mr. Sheffield took you to the Russian Tea Room to meet Lenny. How did that go?"

Fran stopped to think. In all her frustration over Lenny, she had almost forgotten about the time she'd spent alone with Maxwell. "It was really fun," said the nanny with a contented sigh and a dreamy smile. "I mean, for the first time in I don't know _how_ long, we were actually out without the kids. It was almost like we were...a couple."

Val stared at her friend in shock. "Don't you see, Fran?"

"See what?"

This time Val sighed in exasperation. "The reason nothing happened between you and Lenny is you've got the hots for Mr. Sheffield!" Val said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm beginning to think Niles isn't the only one affected by those Lysol fumes," Fran replied. "That's just crazy talk. I am _not_ in love with Mr. Sheffield!" Val shot her a look that clearly said, "Oh, come _on_." "All right, so he is sort of cute. You know, the English accent and all," Fran admitted. "And, now that you mention it, I did sort of get goosebumps a couple times when he touched me last night." Fran paused a moment. "Should I tell him?"


	4. Fran's Revelation

Not wanting to lose her nerve, Fran wasted no time in marching straight to her boss' office. As usual, she barged in with barely a knock. Maxwell looked up, surprised. "Miss Fine, I'm really rather busy here. Couldn't this wait?"

"I've just got one thing to say, and then you can go back to what you were doing," the nanny replied. "I just thought you'd like to know that I lied about Lenny last night. Nothing happened between us, and it was because the guy I'm _really_ attracted to is you."

Max was, to say the least, stunned. He swallowed nervously. He couldn't deny he was attracted to her. He had been since the day she showed up on his doorstep selling cosmetics. Still, he was a grieving widower, and he had always thought it best to take their relationship slowly. Maxwell struggled to find a response to Miss Fine's revelation that would not get him in trouble.

As luck would have it, he was saved the trouble by one of his own children. Maggie entered the room just at that moment. She could tell there was obviously something going on between her father and Fran, but she wasn't exactly sure what. She looked back and forth between the two adults, then decided it was best just to say what was on her mind. "Uh, Fran? Could you come with me to the store?" she asked. "It's that time of the month, and I'm kind of low on supplies." Maggie gave Fran a look to make sure they both knew what kind of "supplies" she was referring to.

The nanny opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get the words out, she was interrupted. Fran was flabbergasted when her boss responded to his daughter's request. "You and I never spend enough time together. How about _I _take you to buy those supplies?"

"No, Dad, that's OK," Maggie replied. "I think this is more Fran's area of expertise than yours." Already the teenager was blushing at the thought of her father helping her pick out tampons.

"Nonsense," Max said. "What could be so difficult about picking up a few...supplies?" He put his arm around his daughter and walked her out of the office.

Fran watched them go in shock and frustration. "If avoiding commitment were an Olympic event, that man would win a gold medal!"

**The End!**


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